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What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

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Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#41

Post by simpixelated »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #10
yingw787 wrote: post #7

I've been fortunate to have two great direct managers at the prior companies I've worked at, and one common thread they have is they've both been developers. I think working in the field before you command people who do so helps build empathy and understanding of the problem at hand, as well as how it all ties into the bigger picture. I've heard in the military officers that served in the enlisted ranks before commis…

Not sure if this is a counterpoint, but pretty much every direct manager I've had (except for one, and she was awesome) started their career as a programmer, and I was also a manager that went from programming->management. While I agree that it's best to have an expert in the field managing you, from my time as a manager I believe the "soft skills" of communication, emotional intelligence, empathy, organization, etc.…

As an introvert who was a manager for several years, I agree that it is very difficult and draining. I believe that I have the skills to be a good manager (empathy, EQ, organization), but I did find it extremely draining. Towards the end of my experience I could tell I wasn't giving my best to my direct reports and so I've gone back to being an individual contributor.

I still entertain the idea of getting back into management, but I'll have to figure out how to offset that drain, or even gain energy from personal interactions, as you said, in order to sustain it for more than a few months/years.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#42

Post by MetalGuru »

Such a handwavy article. I wish they were more specific of the type of questions/exercises they asked/did in their interviewers.

Product thinking and work breakdown discussion: In this interview, the candidate and another member of our engineering management team discuss some questions related to their ability to understand work and delivery, and guide discussions from a customer value perspective.

What does that even mean?

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#43

Post by ionforce »

itronitron wrote: post #21
lmilcin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked for Intel for a bit. I haven't stayed there for long but I have learned a lot about how great engineering management works. Best managers I met had almost nil technical knowledge or if they did they were not advertising it very much. They were gardeners. They made sure you were occupied, you provided value, you did what you liked and all projects that needed staff were allocated staff. They will meet wi…

Best style I have seen is 'people' manager that has the soft skills and interest to do the organizational performance stuff, and separate 'project' managers that manage the work and teams. This allows technical staff to easily move around as needed to different projects without it being a big deal. That also encourages the project managers to be good so that people will be interested in working on their projects.

Most organizations don't have the foresight or bandwidth to organize things this way. It's always just one person do everything. I hate it.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#44

Post by ionforce »

MetalGuru wrote: post #42

Such a handwavy article. I wish they were more specific of the type of questions/exercises they asked/did in their interviewers. Product thinking and work breakdown discussion: In this interview, the candidate and another member of our engineering management team discuss some questions related to their ability to understand work and delivery, and guide discussions from a customer value perspective. What does that eve…

You have to synergize authentic work-streams.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#45

Post by ionforce »

simpixelated wrote: post #41
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this is a counterpoint, but pretty much every direct manager I've had (except for one, and she was awesome) started their career as a programmer, and I was also a manager that went from programming->management. While I agree that it's best to have an expert in the field managing you, from my time as a manager I believe the "soft skills" of communication, emotional intelligence, empathy, organization, etc.…

As an introvert who was a manager for several years, I agree that it is very difficult and draining. I believe that I have the skills to be a good manager (empathy, EQ, organization), but I did find it extremely draining. Towards the end of my experience I could tell I wasn't giving my best to my direct reports and so I've gone back to being an individual contributor. I still entertain the idea of getting back into m…

What specifically was draining about it? What drained you? Why?

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#47

Post by gamesbrainiac »

tomnipotent wrote: post #30
gamesbrainiac wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not true, probably for a majority of people. Alumni networks and family connections are not the norm. Networks don't magically appear, you need to work on building them. > Is there any proof of this? Every Fortune 500 company and a vast majority of successfully-executed projects beg to differ. I don't have any proof other than my own experience. As to your second sentence, what on earth are you talking about? > Bec…

> Networks don't magically appear, you need to work on building them. It would seem that people in technical fields often have problems with this kind of skill, and need help to improve it. Fortunately we have these things called jobs where we have this great opportunity to be exposed to people like that. > As to your second sentence, what on earth are you talking about? On why structured hierarchies are successful.…

> Says every engineer that's never been a manager.

I do own my own company though, and have hired 5 people so far. Its not a lot, but I have managed people in the past as well. Do not assume things about people.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#48

Post by e3b0c »

gwbas1c wrote: post #9

I firmly believe great software engineering managers are people who are adequate developers, but have excellent people skills. Why? They need to understand enough software at a high level to be able to manage, instead of turning lower-level details into management problems. But, they also need to find software development frustrating enough that they are happy to not have to do it every day.

I recently realized that there are roughly two kinds of people, namely people who are good at symbolic/abstract ideas and people who are good at real/physical/touchable things, which can be considered orthogonal to the extrovert/introvert categorization. For a software engineering team, I find it tends to be suboptimal to have a physical-thinking oriented manager who dislikes abstract, symbolic notions, even though they are brilliant and would probably a good fit for say electrical or mechanical engineering teams.

My sampling space isn't large enough, but it's interesting to keep an eye on the personalities of the managers in your organization from that perspective.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#49

Post by rhizome »

MetalGuru wrote: post #42

Such a handwavy article. I wish they were more specific of the type of questions/exercises they asked/did in their interviewers. Product thinking and work breakdown discussion: In this interview, the candidate and another member of our engineering management team discuss some questions related to their ability to understand work and delivery, and guide discussions from a customer value perspective. What does that eve…

Well, "work" is doing stuff, "delivery" is giving that stuff to other people. Not sure why they need an entire discussion about whether the candidate understands that, it seems like something they could cover in the phone screen.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#50

Post by rhizome »

jacobr1 wrote: post #27
tomnipotent wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Otherwise, they just get out of the way and let the team do its thing. Are you saying the next best thing to an involved manager is one that's not involved at all?

benign neglect is better than malign involvement - micromanaging, bad judgement, disruption and chaos etc ...

They are both bad.
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